The Brotherhood of Satan

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DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

The Brotherhood of Satan

#1 Post by DarkImbecile » Fri May 28, 2021 10:30 am

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A small rural town and a family of outsiders, both trapped in the demonic grip of… The Brotherhood of Satan!

Recently widowed Ben, his glamourous girlfriend Nicky and his small daughter K.T. are on a road trip across the Southwest, which comes to a screeching halt when they witness an accident. Heading to the nearby isolated desert town of Hillsboro to report it to the Sheriff (played by L.Q. Jones), they are met with a hostile reaction from the locals, who are gripped by paranoia and fear due to a series of gruesome deaths, as well as the mysterious disappearance of eleven of the community’s children. As the bodies continue to pile up around them, Ben and his family find themselves joining the sheriff, a local priest and the town’s enigmatic physician Doc Duncan (Strother Martin, Cool Hand Luke) in the midst of a mystery that points towards a deadly satanic cult...

Produced by Alvy Moore and L.Q. Jones, a veteran character actor best known for his work with Sam Peckinpah, The Brotherhood of Satan is an atmospheric and chilling tale of terror that provides a crucial missing link between Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Devil’s Rain (1975) in the cycle of turn-of-the-seventies shockers involving sinister devil-worshipping cults lurking within the dark shadows of modern-day America.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
  • High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
  • Original uncompressed mono audio
  • Optional English subtitles
  • Brand new audio commentary by writers Kim Newman and Sean Hogan
  • Satanic Panic: How the 1970s Conjured the Brotherhood of Satan, a brand new visual essay by David Flint
  • The Children of Satan, exclusive new interview with actors Jonathan Erickson Eisley and Alyson Moore
  • Original Trailers and TV and Radio Spots
  • Image Gallery
  • Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Richard Wells
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Johnny Mains and Brad Stevens

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: The Brotherhood of Satan

#2 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri May 28, 2021 10:34 am

My writeup from the Horror thread:
therewillbeblus wrote:
Fri Mar 06, 2020 9:17 am
I really liked The Brotherhood of Satan too which was pretty relentless in keeping me on a shaky beam. The eerie obscurities at the start were disorienting to the point where only about twenty minutes in did I feel we were on a more standard track, which was then itself an illusion. The film works so well by doubling down on its intriguing premise with real stakes rather than self-parody; it takes a common trope of the opposition to a helpless family trying to seek human support in the wake of mystical troubles and amplifies it, raising the anxiety around achieving salvation, and at the same time we are presented with a fervent worship group who take their devotion to intensities that actually match their threat level.

For a film that seems to roughly follow the mold of many footsteps before and after it, there’s a considerable amount of acute eccentric horror, thanks in part to a wild narrative balanced with meticulously grounded attention to detail, which is taken seriously enough to stabilize against a topple into an absurdist joke, remaining instead as an absurdist provocateur. This film also gets the threat of satanic cults so right because, at least for me, the idea is not primarily scary because of the reality that other people are unknowable as demonstrated by their anti-humanist practices, but rather because their behavior fits with ours only tweaked to places we don’t dare to dream venturing. To feel human camaraderie with this group, including those taken in the coven, in appearance and subtle identification in their calmness and confidence, is uncomfortable enough knowing what they are and what they’re doing (this happens during the banal parts of the ritual, rather than in disguise in public re:Rosemary’s Baby so the similarities with other religious practices give one ironic security..); but then to be upended with drastic disturbing behavior is something else entirely once we have that familiar baseline - within the same setting! -to become exceptionally jarring. I love how the ending signifies that
SpoilerShow
either the rituals we see were over by the time the adults arrived; were all in the adults’ minds, concocted from their own fears, revealing a sense of invalidated paranoia; or most likely (at least how I interpreted it), that these thoughts were summoned into their minds by the children playing their game with some kind of satanic voodoo. How scary of an implication: that our intrusive thoughts are actually being planted there from alien forces!

Or are the kids simply the vessels that the older cult members have sacrificed themselves into, making it a bit of a simpler “too late” scenario? But if so, why are they playing with figurines of the events we just saw?
I'll be curious how others read the ending once more people see it

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L.A.
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: The Brotherhood of Satan

#3 Post by L.A. » Fri Aug 27, 2021 4:48 am


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